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Saturday, 29 September 2012

Ironcron recoiled with fury from the obsidian mirror! A maddening rage burned through his gigantically muscled limbs, the savage scarlet of the anger's inferno dying his vision into a sea of vermillion swirls.

How dare the infidel? How dare the blasphemer?

Once more he looked, every thread of self control struggling against the welcome urge to raise his axe and shatter the mirror beyond use. Once more he witnessed the white faced warrior deface the ancient pile of bleached skulls, which had been raised by the Thrice Cursed Gielieb Von Draksvald to honour the Blood God, shortly before his ascension to daemonhood.

The apoplectic rage spilled over, and Ironcron hammered his axe down between the shoulder blades of one of his followers. The beast collapsed with shocking force, blood seeping like a crimson sea from the cleaved wound as Ironcron brutally wretched his weapon free. The wound, though still seeping hideously with blood, began to twist and change shape. Grotesque teeth sprouted from the wound's edges and a lengthy, insidious tongue licked the warm blood from its newly formed lips. The corpse, its skeletal structure shattered by the force of the blow, lay still on the heathen ground as an insane mouth puckered and jibbered in excitement from the remains of the mortal wound.

Ironcron wrenched himself away from the smoking, depthless mirror and stepped over the rapidly disintergrating corpse, its lips still spasming in an appalling mockery of human speech.

He strode forth to put into action his patron's demand."

Introduction

As regular readers will know, Dan and I have just started attending a wargaming club in Sudbury. This has provided the opportunity for us to play on larger boards with a wider range of scenery and we took full advantage of this fact to play the biggest RoC game we've yet attempted.

We didn't have long to work on the game so selected to face off Dan's Khornate warband and orc allies with my mixed force of Slaanesh and Nurgle champion's retinues. We used some of the scenery I made from the previous game along with a mix of terrain from the club, most notably the Wizard's Tower seen below!

The Unknown Blasphemer: Caught loitering in the Realms by two approaching Chaos forces. What will his fate be?

We wanted some simple narrative element to the game, so we opted to use the model above as the Unknown Blasphemer who had affronted the chaos god Khorne by defiling one of his shrines. The Khornate objective would be to kill this character while Slaanesh and Nurgle would obviously want to recruit him. We decided that at the end of each turn we'd roll a d6 and that would be the character's move, and that the character would move along a pre-determined route that would represent his flight from the approaching forces.

Dan enthusing over the size of the gameboard we set up. We arrived late and had to make do with a space 'round by the bins.' The associated stench helped re-enforce the illusion of fielding Nurgle forces.

The set up before the game began. Slaanesh on the top left hand corner, Nurgle below while Khorne spreads itself thinly on the other side of the table.

The right flank of my army. Here you can see the minotaur Grizzlegut, Raggedflay the Nurgle Sorcerer, Oozingsore the Blighted, Champion of Nurgle with his thug and beastmen followers.

Here Ironcron leads his followers in search of revenge. Units of beastmen and his chaos warriors are allied with orc and goblin mercenaries.

While on the extreme left side of the board, Dan fielded Gluttonspoor along with Mange and Fang, the chaos hounds.

We rolled off on a d6 to see who would have the first turn. Dan rolled a 5 to my 2 so the opening advantage was held by him. He wasted no time before laughing in my face like a madman and reaching for the tape measure. We ensured that we had stats for all the units, instantly created a few characters using the charts on Slaves to Darkness and spread out the weighty tomes that are required to play. We find the summary published in Warhammer Armies and the summary from Lost and the Damned, particularly useful for jogging memories so laid out some tables to house the reference material.

Dan launches his attack with a tape measure. When he had wearied himself through wild attempts at removing my eyes with the twisted end of the tape, he goaded his wulfboyz forwards towards my static lines.

Dan moved the rest of his forces twice, as you do in 3rd Edition when you are using the reserves rules. Here are the positions of the Khornate warband after the first turn.

Goblinoids support the Khorne advance. Dan had to manoeuvre his orcs to ensure that they would pass an obstacle successfully.

The view to my front as Dan ends his first turn. Damn, those wulfboyz are fast!

Gluttonspoor approaches the Blasphemer at the end of Dan's first turn. Revenge (and probably the eating of warm flesh) very much on the minotaur's, and undoubtably Dan's, mind.

My turn was over quickly. I moved my forces forwards. I planned on moving my Nurgle troops through the tower's boundary while the Slaaneshi warband dealt with the Goblinoids. With three magic users in my army, I wasted no time unleashing a wave of fireballs at all those in range.

Goblins must be flammable as the wulfboyz lost two of their number to magical missiles of hissing flame. Having lost over 25% of their number in a single turn, the unit had to take a panic test. Guess what? They failed and turned and ran back in the opposite direction. Well, that's payback for the last game!

The turned ended with me moving the Blasphemer further down the steps of the wizard's tower. Gluttonspoor can just be seen lurking around the corner ready to extract the price of treachery.

So ended the first turn. Two goblins lay smoking on the field. The howls and snorts of the beastmen filled the air as sizzling fireballs streaked towards their targets. Warcries and the mad chants of ecstatic followers of the Pleasure God rang the ears while the very air itself was acrid with the dementing stench of chaos.

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

The life of a Chaos Champion is fraught with hideous danger and the temptation of inconceivable power.

As the chart above starkly realizes, a Chaos Champion must face a legion of blasphemous trials on the journey to immortality. None is more fearsome than the cutting edge of my new tool. It uses metal disks to cut and made short work of the two heads that once graced my broken old miniatures.

The aftermath of the cutting. I trimmed the old shield boss from the fist of the Khorne champion (left) and then obliterated the head to make way for the pinhead attribute. The Nurgle champion was a simple case of lopping off the arms and then removing the head - which I have kept for future use.

Brass rod is easy to cut and makes excellent pins for converted miniatures.

The arms have been repositioned on the Nurgle champion and a new sword created with plasticard. A more crude blade was added to the Khorne champion's hand. Both need a good filing now.

Right, tomorrow green stuff will be added to the gaps and work will begin on the heads of these two champions. I have decided to sculpt both of them rather than cut off small familiar heads.

Monday, 24 September 2012

On Saturday night, Dan and I visited a Wargaming Club in our locality at http://www.sadwc.co.nr/ that he had found on the internet. Now Dan used to frequent the Chelmsford Bunker until he was accused (rather bizarrely) of being a POWERGAMER!

The reason for this vile and foul insult?

He cheered once!

Now, I love nothing more than beating Dan on the field of battle and laughing in his face, as he reciprocates frequently, but I could never conceive him to be a POWERGAMER. No loop hole rich armylists for he, no cheese laden flavour of the month armies either, just a force made out of the models he likes visually, coupled with some interesting rules.

We were made welcome by the guys who frequent the group and found the Village Hall they use to be very well stocked with scenery and very large gaming tables. Perfect really! Especially when you have a look at the games they play there. A nice range of historicals, to fantasy to sci fi.

To quote Dan; "When GW get it right... they get it right! Shame they get it wrong most of the time!" This game best
proves that particular point to be true.

We had taken a copy of Space Hulk Third Edition with us (a game we used to play a lot of a few years back) and had a brilliant time playing The Artefact Mission. I was the Terminators while Dan took the Genestealers.

I was thrashed of course!

But it was a wonderfully fun game. One thing that we have always done is remind each other of forgotten rules, even if that rule is detrimental to our forces, though Dan is a bit of a LAWYER when it comes to strict interpretation of the rules. So quite how the POWERGAMER tag was bandied in his direction, as he's a rather honest gamer.

Dan and I mid game some years ago. Note: getting my son interested at an early age!

We discussed how though a straight line up and fight game was interesting we'd always prefer to play game with a strong narrative element. Hence, the switch to Slave to Darkness and using Realm of Chaos properly. Some of you may be aware that Lost and the Damned contains a comprehensive Narrative Wargame system and I plan to be using it to develop and produce each of the campaign's games.

But more on that in a later post.

So which do you prefer in your gaming? Narrative or non-narrative?

CHAOS WEAPONS

I am sure that many of you are familiar with the Chaos Weapons in Slaves to Darkness. Well, I am proud to unveil my new chaos weapon onto the blogging world!

Just don't slip..!

Cutting up old school miniatures is a bit of a task and I hope this beauty is going to make the process smoother than using some old hacksaw. Especially when you consider what arrived in the post this morning,

Restoration will be sweet.

Two broken 80s miniatures! These sad souls will be soon brought back to life as my Khorne and Nurgle champions for my next campaign. Both of these beasts need a weapon fix and will need their heads removing. Khorne (on the left) will be requiring a pinhead attribute while Nurgle (on the right) will be receiving a chaos gift of a face of a beast of Nurgle.

I hope to start work on these tomorrow evening!

OLDHAMMER GOES PUBLIC!
This Friday, Dan and I will be putting on a demo game of Realm of Chaos at http://www.sadwc.co.nr/ and I believe that this may be the first public outing for Oldhammer, though I may well be wrong! If you are in the area pop along and visit us or just wait in the comfort of your arm chair and wait for the extensive battle report over the coming weekend.

Sunday, 23 September 2012

Ian (I later did Shrek) Miller's intricate illustrations communicate the twisted horror of the Realm of Chaos, '80s style.

So it begins.

I have just received my first miniature for my Slave to Darkness campaign. Unfortunately, my camera isn't charged so you will have to wait for an update about what I am using as a basis for the first champion.

I can tell you it will be the Khorne champion with the pinhead mutation though!

This leaves us with the interesting question of who this champion actually is. What was his journey to chaos? Why did he turn from the security and safety of more benign religions and beliefs?

Back in the day, I used the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Character Pack to create characters in detail. Sadly, I no longer own a copy of this seminal release and had to make do with the inferior 2nd edition version. If you don't know what I am talking about have a look at this link...

Additionally, after searching through the (many) similar resources on the internet I also found this simple little name generator that creates instant names from human characters in the Warhammer World. Useful, considering that all of the characters in the campaign are currently human! Again, here is the link...

Obviously, the Empire has the highest percentage, being the largest human region, followed with Bretonnia being the second. The remaining values were pretty much equally spread out among the remaining locations.

So lets roll...

I rolled 55 which gives us Bretonnia as a birth place for our first champion. Now, what's the chance of the character being male or female? Certainly not 50%. In a post-medieval world few women would have lead a life of arms so I'd suggest a gender test of...

D100 Gender Test
01-90 Male
91-99 Female
00 Haemaphrodite

I rolled 39, so our first champion is very male.

Next, let's use the smoothspiral name generator to find out what this Gallic soul is called.

Yves Jeandeau is the result! Well I'd never have come up with something like that on my own. The character pack is useless for Bretonnia so I'll have to pick a birthplace of my own.

The Warhammer World. Not quite the 80s version, but it will do for now...

I roll a 60, so our champion, Yves Jeandeau, spent his early years in and around Gisoreux. Now, we need to determine what it was he did as a profession. The character pack will help with this as it contains a useful chart about careers that can be applied to the background to a Realms of Chaos character.

I roll 06 which means Yves used to be (or came from a family of) a barber surgeon. I suppose we need to know his age, if we are going to be able to explore his background in any real detail. When I used to GM the Enemy Within I used to use the formula 3d10 + 15 to establish the age of any NPC, and I think the same formula will be useful now. I roll 6+1+3 = 10 + 15 = 25. So Yves is 25 years old as he enters the Wastes. With such a young age, I doubt he would have qualified as a barber surgeon so I'm going to go with the idea that his father was.

Well, I suppose I better get that camera charged and dunk the miniature I am going to use as a basis in the old dettol. Next time, a full write up of Yves back story and some images to show how I am getting on with the conversion.

Sunday, 16 September 2012

Welcome back to our nostalgic dip into WD 96. The December issue of White Dwarf was packed full of Citadel releases with most of the sculpts appearing in full colour. Soon this was to become fairly standard, with new models appearing in painted form before a black and white version was shown in the back of the magazine.

Travelling Players

We've hit one of the BIG BOYS of collecting with this set. The Travelling Players make up part of one of the most sought after sets of Citadel miniatures on the scene today. Often described with the umbrella term of 'Warhammer Townsfolk' (though some sets were advertised with that header) these everyday folk of the Warhammer World are hot property on eBay with LARGE prices regularly cropping up. When you look at the models on offer you can see why. Each one is different with many sculpts being humorous mockeries of British stereotypes - just look for the Punch and Judy man, St George and his dragon and the rather fetching actor in drag. Gamewise, there is little these models can really contribute in a battle game (other than window dressing for town based games) though I can imagine that these models would be useful for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Over the years I have been tempted to start collecting these figures but always hold back. I know that as soon as I start I will be spending the twilight hours (and considerable ££££) searching from these illusive beauties. Lovely paint jobs of these examples; nice and bright and wonderfully shaded with the 80s Citadel inks.

Warhammer Fantasy Regiments

I have discussed these models before and you can see what I had to say by following this link... drastic-plastic-warhammer-fantasy. I included the ad as it had some nice colour photographs that some of you may not have seen before.

Dwarfs, Dark Elves and Orcs...

Skaven, Wood Elves and Goblins....

Of particular interest to me are the command teams that were released alongside the boxset. These pictures show off what can be achieved with a couple of boxes of these models and four command figures.

Men At Arms

More proto-historical Perry goodness. This time we have some Feudal men at arms equipped with a wide range of different weapon types. As you would expect from Michael and Alan, we have a great deal of realistic armour and clothing. Looking through the set my mind calls out 'Wars of the Roses' every time I browse through the models. Obviously, for fantasy purposes these models would be useful for any Bretonnian general but are a little too boring for my fantastic tastes.

Elf Warriors

Well here we have the elves. I love this ad as it has such a range of design motiefs. Firstly, you have the classic 80s elf, high boots, hoods, long hair and a celtic whiff. Then come the forebears of the current range, particularly Dubh, with the long mailcoats and conical helms and the flowing haired waifs that wouldn't look out of place among the Wardancers.

This set has some new sculpts among many older ones, including models that were produced for GW's 80s Lord of the Rings range. I am glad to say that I own quite a few of these models but I have yet to paint a single one! This is unlikely to change as Elves are a long, long way off in my order of priorities.

Minotaurs and Nippon Rocket Crew

Nick Bibby's minotaurs were clearly a popular range as they turn up on eBay quite often. Here we have the examples that fit on a 25mm base. Regular readers of this blog may notice that three of this particular set have been painted and posted by me since I began this blog. I can speak from experience when I say that painting these lead lovelies is a joy and with all the little details sculpted on them they can be an engrossing little project. Yes, the names of the models are rather naff and the minotaur lord is a bit toothy but they are mean in game terms and every third edition player should have at least one of these monsters to push around a table.

On to Nippon and one of the few official releases from GW for this mysterious eastern state. Here they are in all their rare glory. I've seen this set quite often on eBay and have lost out several times to other bidders. I don't know why, but something draws me towards this set and makes me think 'buy me'! Perhaps its the relatively rarity of Nippon models or just the characterful 80s sculpts!

Fresh from the Wastes with warpdust still clinging to my chainmail jeggings, I present to you some lovely Citadel old school goodness from WD96. Here is the quick glimpse at the classic cover of this particular issue when GW actually used decent art on the front of the products rather than that awful 'house style' blandness the enthuse about today.

Notice the amusing mistake on the front cover?

Elven Animal Keepers and Bugman's Cart

I am sure that all of you are familiar with these releases. Classic is a word used too often to describe many of the releases from this era but these two products certainly deserve to be described so. Starting with the elves then, the sculpting is obviously Goodwin and the 80s themes prevail. Long, slender legs with spandex style trousers, the big hair and the handsome, angular faces. Any of these elves could have slipped on stage with Skid Row, Guns 'n' Roses or Bon Jovi and fitted in perfectly. The posing is interesting and varied and these sculpts are packed with enough character to keep even the most jaded of painters happy. The animals too are intriguing, with bears, boars, cheetahs and dogs all available to throw at the enemy. Though these lack variation, suitable colour schemes (like shown here) can make the models appear different.

On to the painting itself... The first thing that strikes me trying to look at the models with fresh eyes are the subtle tones used. They are very naturalist and make the animals seem lifelike. The colours are very woodlike and you'd probably see these shades on a woodland stroll in any autumnal forest from England to New England. The quality of painting , particularly the shading on the bear and boars, is exceptional and, to me anyway, suggests the hand of Mike McVey in the painting of these beauties. If I ever manage to collect this set I'd do a straight copy of these schemes and I think that are remarkably effective.

I cannot remember if this is the first or second version of Bugman's Cart. Whatever version it is the model doesn't lack for amusing character. Though the sculpting is less refined than the animal keepers this piece has the simplistic charm you would expect of the period. Additionally, you can just tell that some sculptor turned up on Monday morning and said "I'm going to make a dwarf beer cart" and went on their merry way and got on with it. It has that sense of spontaneity about it, don't you think?

The animal keepers and the animals themselves are fairly regular guests on eBay and can be sources quite reasonably. Bugman's cart however, despite being the poorer sculpt tends to go for a fair old price, usually around the £30 mark.

Paint Yer Dragon...

I included this 'Eavy Metal article in full because it shows off some of the lovely 80s dragons that were available at the time. These days, certainly on the blogging scene, we don't seem to love the long tailed beasts as much as those gamers of yesteryear. Perhaps that is something that should be rectified?

I have never actually painted a dragon and for many collectors a project like one of these beasts is likely to result in one of the largest painted finished pieces in a collection (unless you are Skarsnik and pick up a giant that is..!).

I love the red and green colour scheme of the Great Imperial Dragon. very Citadel ! This one, if memory serves, was painted by the enigmatic and mysterious Sid. Where do he go, eh?

The first page of Mike McVey's dragons. Here the man shows off his considerable skills with the spined beasts. Each dragon is different in shade and character while the blending is nothing short of phenomenal. My favourite? The young fire dragon.

More of McVey's dragons. The dragon ogre is a strong favourite of mine and I have been after this sculpt and the other one with the eagle for some years. These models would make excellent character models for a Dragon Ogre warband in Realm of Chaos.

The article also contains detailed instructions and tips to aid the modeller and painter with the ardous task of doing a decent job on one of the incredible miniatures.

So? Who's got a dragon in their collection and who has actually painted one?

Saturday, 15 September 2012

So we return once more to The Realm. I have recently been mulling over what to do next with my hobbying, especially with the winter months coming up. The cold, forbidding weather coupled with much shorter daylight hours here in the UK always seems to encourage miniature painting. Ahh, the reassuring glow of the modelling lamp and that distinctive 'undead' look us miniature painters achieve when bathed in its heat. But I digress...

As I have said before, I want to collect, paint and convert 'period' miniatures to run a 'Realm of Chaos' campaign proper, using the full rules presented in the associated literature. I have in mind to create a champion for each of the four major chaos powers and build a custom made 'Realm of Chaos' battlefield/gaming table before the Christmas holidays. The characters created will need full, expansive background (inspired by the incredible entries in the Golden Goblin painting competition), rules and most importantly, a retinue. I plan to use the narrative game generator published in Lost and the Damned to ensure that a strong narrative element prevails through the games, even though the true emphasis is on the collecting, converting and painting.

To roll and roll again

So to begin then. And as anyone will know if they have ever gone about creating a chaos champion, your first port of call is the Starting Profile Table from Slaves to Darkness.

You know when its 80s when there are a LOT of options on a nice, big table.

I am imagining that the 'Four Protagonists' as we shall now call them are all freshly arrived in the Chaos Wastes. They would have no doubt travelled up through the Old World, crossing the Sea of Claws and passing through Norsca to reach their dreaded destination. Or perhaps, they slogged their way through Kislev and Troll country to the border. Or perhaps, from some other less well known direction.

It seems that chaos favours humanity above the other races. Looking at the table, it is far more likely than not that your champion will be human. The chances of rolling off a high levelled character is also more remote. When we have played previously, we just picked a level for both champions, so it will be interesting to see how these characters interact on the table top.

Each character next gets a free roll on the retinue table to get their little warband going. Again, human troops are the most likely, alongside beastmen. This would no doubt represent the followers that the champion would have picked up on their long journey to the wastes.

Well, things are certainly interesting already. Khorne has a glut of beastmen (very appropriate for the Blood God) as does Nurgle (hopefully, I can get my hands on some more pestigors). Slaanesh and Tzeentch, certainly the most magical of the Powers both have magic users. I need to generate the stats for the sorcerer and the wizard as well as establishing the number of beastmen the warbands will have.

So there we have them... Generated and profiled up. I have decided, to make things for interesting and focus my addiction to late nigh eBaying, that all the models in this campaign have to be purchased specifically, so no raiding the collection for suitable minis. I'll just have to see what I can get hold of online and with any trades that can be achieved. Obviously, Slaanesh and Tzeentch are going to be fairly easy as only two models are required for each warband (if you can call them that at this stage?) while Khorne and Nurgle need multiple beastmen so shall probably take a little longer.